Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C42 of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched two satellites of the United Kingdom from Sriharikota on Sunday, September 16, 2018.
The two satellites developed by Surrey Satellite Technologies Limited (SSTL) are NovaSAR-1, a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, and SSTL S1-4, a high-resolution optical Earth Observation satellite. The UK Space Agency has invested £21M in the development of NovaSAR-1 satellite.
NovaSAR is intended for forest mapping, land use, and ice cover monitoring as well as flood and disaster monitoring, while S1-4 is a high-resolution satellite that will be used for surveying resources, environment monitoring, urban management, and disaster monitoring.
The PSLV-C42 launch vehicle’s liftoff began at10.08 pm and it has injected the satellites into orbit 17 minutes and 45 seconds after lift-off. The launch vehicle placed them in the sun-synchronous orbit 583km from the earth’s surface.
